FOUNTAIN VALLEY (CNS) - Orange County Transportation Authority's Talbert Avenue bridge project, which is part of the widening of the San Diego (405) Freeway, sustained a setback today when a fire broke out on its construction site.
Fountain Valley firefighters were called at 8:52 a.m. about the blaze at Talbert Avenue and the freeway, Fountain Valley Fire Capt. Brent Waterworth said.
“The fire was extinguished shortly thereafter, but there were some power lines affected so (Southern California) Edison did shut down some power so there will be some outages for some period of time,” Waterworth said.
California Highway Patrol officers had to shut down traffic in both directions for a time, Waterworth said. As of 9:45 a.m., all southbound lanes had reopened, along with the northbound carpool lane. The northbound No. 1 lane reopened about 10:20 a.m., but other northbound lanes remained closed.
The fire broke out on the construction site for the new Talbert Avenue bridge, which is part of the expansion of the freeway, but the cause of the blaze was not immediately known, Waterworth said.
“It was a very large fire, but it was confined to the object of origin,” he said.
The Talbert Avenue bridge was demolished in September, so construction crews had been working on a temporary structure for the bridge, said Megan Abba, an OCTA spokeswoman.
“We're not sure about any impacts at this time,” to the timeline for constructing the new bridge, Abba said.
But construction crews have been able to work longer hours on the bridge project because of lighter traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Abba said. The original completion date was September of this year, she said.
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